Expanding psychiatric center will benefit young people needing care

Saturday

Jul 27, 2013 at 1:30 AM

The Strategic Behavioral Center in Leland will expand its facility to include 20 beds

By Mike VoorheisMike.Voorheis@StarNewsOnline.com

Adolescents and children with psychiatric crises will soon have an additional option for short-term care.With a grand opening scheduled for Thursday, the Strategic Behavioral Center in Leland will expand its facility to include 20 beds for the treatment and stabilization of patients who do not require long-term residential care. Typically, patients in the acute (short-term) care center will stay four to 12 days, said Matt Doyle, CEO of Strategic Behavioral Health. Patients in the center's residential facility, which already has 72 beds, need longer-term care, usually four to eight months.Today, if an 11-year-old has a psychotic outburst and needs emergency psychiatric treatment, he could languish in an emergency department for hours, possibly days. Hospital administrators agree that the emergency department is not the proper place for continued care for those with behavioral health problems. Amy Myers, spokeswoman for Brunswick Novant Medical Center, and Karen Pleva, administrator of the New Hanover Regional Medical Center Behavioral Health Hospital, acknowledged that patients sometimes spend four or five days in the emergency department waiting for a bed.Until a bed opens at an acute psychiatric inpatient program such as Strategic Behavioral Center, the patient is in limbo, not knowing if he will remain in the emergency department another day or if he might be moved to a facility hours away from his home.Even when a bed is available, it might not fit the specific requirements of the patient. The beds could be reserved for 12- to 17-year-olds or they might be gender-specific.The N.C. Hospital Association, working with the state, developed a system in 2011 to identify available beds. But, Pleva said, the system is "not really up to date" and that finding a facility is "still pretty much a manual process." Patients from nearby hospitals such as Novant and NHRMC have been transported to emergency psychiatric hospitals in Jacksonville, the Raleigh area and even as far away as Winston-Salem. Transporting patients halfway across the state can be taxing for the family and expensive for local sheriff's departments, who absorb the hours and other costs of transportation."The emergency rooms are the ones who are going to benefit immediately," Doyle said about SBC's opening. "Of course, it will also help the families and the children. The community as a whole will benefit." Myers of Brunswick Novant Medical Center said that most juvenile psychiatric patients in need of short-term care are transported to Brynn Marr Hospital in Jacksonville or Holly Hill Hospital in Raleigh."The facilities are sometimes full and that means a longer drive," Myers said. "Strategic Behavioral Center will offer another option."The local advantage of the Leland facility will be somewhat diluted by the private facility's status as a statewide intake facility. Its open beds can be filled by patients from anywhere across the state. If its 20 beds are filled, area hospitals must again resort to making phone calls across the state to find a bed that fits their particular need.The expansion at SBC, across from Northwest Park in Leland, adds 10,000 square feet to the facility and will add about 50 permanent positions. SBC opened its 72-bed residential facility in 2008. SBC, which also has facilities in Garner and Charlotte, now employs about 250 people in Brunswick County.